Thing #23 - Summary

This was a great journey!
Although I had a part in creating this program there were areas that I really had not investigated before and that was great for me. Often in both my personal and professional life I get so busy that I forget to "Play" and this was a great way to force me to play with the neat tools that are out there. I am so thankful that I work where I do and with the people I work with, even when I get in a rut doing the "daily" tasks I have to, my colleagues push me to go farther and find more and that is something that you can't get just anywhere or from anyone!
I will, of course, take part in another version of this, because I know that there are ALWAYS new things out there to find and discover! What a wonderful world!!!

Thing # 22 - Ning, nang, and ping

I have been a member of both the TeacherLibrarian Ning and the TexasSchoolLibrarians Ning for at least a year, so I know a good bit about them. I think that Nings are a wonderful way to collaborate with others in your profession from all over the world. When the last Harry Potter book came out, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the TeacherLibrarian Ning had a discussion group totally devoted to discussing the book and the ending of the series. It was awesome! I got to share my ideas and thoughts about the book with librarians all over the world and read what they thought about the book! The Teacher Ning was great, I liked that it was split by grade levels and that you could join discussions that directly related to problems and ideas that you would deal with on a daily basis.

For me Nings are a wonderful example of the potential collaboration that the web currently offers! I am SOOOOOOO glad I live in today technological revolution ---- what a great time to be a teacher and a librarian!

Thing # 21 - Pods, casts, vods, and more!

I have been playing around with Podcasts and Vidoecasts for a couple of years now, and I believe that they have unlimited potential in the educational setting, especially in elementary! What a wonderful way for students to show what they have learned about a topic AND using technology for the final product!

Anyway, the thing about blogs and podcasts that is frustrating is that you can't directly load an audio file into a blog, so you have to have a place to host or keep your audio file or podcast, or you have to do a photostory. The file below is one I created when teaching a class on podcasts and videocasts, it is on the Alamo and instead of talking through the pictures I put in background music.

As a side note; in the previous "Thing" I did find a website that will "host" your podcasts and you can link from there, so there is a way to do it, it's just not easy!

Here is my pod/videocast:

Thing # 18 - Online tools, or Can we really get it free???

I tried both of the word processing tools mentioned. I found that OpenOffice took a good bit of time to download but was useful when I got it loaded. I was however VERY impressed with the ease and simplicity of GoogleDocs. I also liked the way that you can share and edit documents with GoogleDocs. I have used GoogleDocs with a class that I am currently auditing, all of the students are located in different parts of the state and the U. S. and we were able to take a document and all look at it and make our comments and edits in one place without the hassle of emailing and sending a document all around to get the changes and ideas we needed to get a finished product. I think that both tools offer a viable alternative to Microsoft Office with the added benefit of sharing the document with others for either viewing or editing. It is like being in a "virtual conference" room and collaborating with others from all over the world --- what an awesome world we live in!

Thing #17 - Playing in the Sandbox!

The Sandbox Wiki was really fun. I have contributed to wikis before, but the fun thing about this was reading all of the comments of the other Library2Play players! What a good way to see what everyone else is thinking about this professional development tool and reading what other players are experiencing. Collaboration is the heart of education (at least in my opinion) and what better way to collaborate!

Thing #16 - Wicky, wacky, wikis!

I have worked with wikis for at least four years, thanks again to my incredible boss, and I think there are unlimited uses for them!!! In our school district we have several wikis that we use for a variety of things, we have one for posting new websites that are good for different subject areas, one that we posted reviews of "required reading" titles for our secondary schools, several that solicited thoughts and comments on different school district initiatives like new library construction, technology in libraries, etc.
Anyway, I even started a wiki to record family information from relatives all over the U. S., essentially a place to write down antidotal stories from our childhood about our long lost relatives. I think wikis a an awesome tool for sharing thoughts, ideas, and stories for anything! They allow us to share in real time with people who live all over the world, they really are a boon to us in this mobile information society.
As for education uses, it's a great way to share student thoughts, comments, and ideas in a common space, I even know of a school where they use a wiki for teachers to order lunch from a local salad and sandwich restaurant. What a great example of the use of digital technology!